Two years ago my son John gave me a Sony GPS for the purpose of recording exactly where I was when I took photographs. His choice for the Sony GPS was a good one because it is simple to use, is powered by a AA battery, and it can store 30 days of GPS tracks. As he showed me, there is freeware available that allows one to merge the GPS tracks with the EXIF data stored on each shot taken with my digital cameras. It is a simple, easy to use, idiot proof little system that has been with me on recent trips I have made in remote parts of the world. All I have to do is to make sure I have a good supply of AA batteries with me. One battery will power the GPS for about eight hours or so. In sum, you put a battery in the device, turn it on and then strap it to your backpack. That’s it. And while you are trekking around, the little device locks on to satellites and methodically records where you are about every 10 seconds. Geocoding, a cool concept.

One can do other stuff with it too. My favorite is to convert the GPS tracks into Google Earth files then go look at where I went on a given day. To visualize where you have been then becomes something really special. For example, here is a screen capture from Google Earth, showing my trek at the Island of Bartoleme located in the Galapagos Islands.

On this day, I departed from the Yacht Eric, shown as “boat anchor” on the screen capture above, rode a small boat from the yacht to a landing area at the base of the top of Bartoleme, then trekked up a almost 400 wooden steps to the top. Along the way, I took some shots showing the area.

This photo shows “Pinnacle Rock” one of the best known spots in the Galapagos Islands. Course, at this point I am about out of breath, with about 300 more steps to trod before getting to the top, the last ones, the most difficult. I hate steps.

This area is like walking on Mars. Very dry, with sparse vegetation, yet filled with life. And when one gets to the top, well, one is breathless in more than one way, not just from all those steps but from the vista that one finds at the top. Here is a panorama I made from six photographs done handheld then stitched together using Photoshop.

Walking down was a whole lot easier than walking up, and after the trek to the top, I again boarded a small boat and landed at the small cove shown next to Pinnacle Rock where I went snorkeling. WOW, what an experience that was! Especially swimming along the end of Pinnacle Rock. It’s a lot bigger than it looks.

And, there, while swimming, I took this photo of one of the underwater vistas.

Now, after returning from my trip, I can enjoy seeing where I was, and linking where I was exactly with my photographs, all because of this small little device that weighs less than three ounces. I think that is sorta way cool.

But, one can do more than just link location with shots. Stuff like creating a Google Earth KMZ file and sharing the experience with others. In fact, if you double click on the following file, and if you have Google Earth installed on your computer, you should be able to go where I went and then view my trek on your computer. Depending upon the browser you use, you might have to download the file and then open it with Google Earth. I think that is simply awesome.

bartoleme.kmz

If you are interested in using a GPS, whether it is the Sony, or another GPS you use, here are some resources I have found useful:

1. GPS Visualizer. This is an awesome Internet site that converts GPS tracks into several different formats, including Google Earth, Google Maps, JPEG graphic, text, etc. BTW, this awesome website is free. No charge to you to convert the files, thanks to Adam Schneider the site’s creator.

2. GPSPhotoLinker. This is freeware and I run it on my Mac. The software will link GPS tracks to the EXIF data for your individual photographs. Key to making the software work well is to set your camera’s clock to GMT time. It makes it much simpler to know what time it was when you took the shots. You can download the software here.

3. Google Earth. What can I say, there is nothing like it, fantastic. Install it on your computer.

The Sony GPS is a very useful tool, but it does have some issues. It simply will not work on a Mac, it did once on Intel Macs, but if you have upgraded to Leopard, it won’t mount as a drive on your computer. I hate that. Now, I have to borrow someone’s Windows machine to offload my tracks. Sony needs to fix that. And Apple needs to fix Leopard so that the device will appear as a drive. Two lines of code.

All in all though, the Sony GPS has worked well for me. I love the simplicity of its operation, the fact that it is small, the fact that it runs on AA batteries, and the fact that it will store about 30 days of GPS tracks without offloading files. You gotta love technology. I just wish Sony would fix the Mac issue. Some of us are enlightened.